Introduction to Interview & its Types

Introduction to Interview & its Types

The word interview comes from Latin and Middle French words meaning to “see between” or “see each other”. Generally, an interview is a private meeting between people where questions are asked and answered. The person who answers the questions is called the interviewee & the person who asks the questions is called the interviewer.

According to Gary Dessler, “An interview is a procedure designed to obtain information from a person’s oral response to oral inquiries.”

According to Thill and Bovee, “An interview is any planned conversation with a specific purpose involving two or more people”.

Types of interview

There are many types of interviews that an organization can arrange. It depends on the objectives of taking the interview. Some important types of interviews are stated below

1. Personal interview

Personal interviews include:

• Selection of the employees
• Promotion of the employees
• Retirement and resignation of the employees

Of course, this type of interview is designed to obtain information through discussion and observation about how well the interviewer will perform a job.

2. Evaluation interview:

This interview that takes place annually to review the progress of the employee is called the evaluation interview. Naturally, it is occurring between superiors and subordinates. The main objective of this interview is to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the employees.

3. Persuasive interview

 This interview is designed to understand the persuasive talent of the employee about a product or an idea. When a sales representative talks with a target buyer, persuasion takes in the form of convincing the target that the product needs.

4. Structured interview

Structured interviews follow formal procedures predetermined with an agenda or questions.

5. Unstructured interview

When the interview does not follow the formal rules or procedures. It is called an unstructured interview. The discussion will probably be free-flowing and may shift rapidly from one subject to another depending on the interests of the interviewee and the interviewer.

6. Counseling interview

This may be arranged to find out what has been troubling the workers and why someone has not been working.

7. Disciplinary interview

Disciplinary interviews are occurring when an employee has been accused of breaching the organization’s rules and procedures

8. Stress interviews

It is designed to place the interviewee in a stressful situation in order to observe the interviewee’s reaction.

9. Informal or conversational interview

 In the conversational interview, no predetermined questions are asked, in order to remain as open and adaptable as possible to the interviewee’s nature and priorities; during the interview, the interviewer goes with the flow.

10. General interview

The guided approach is intended to ensure that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee this provides more focus than the conversational approach but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in getting the information from the interviewee.

11. Standardized or open-ended interview

Here the same open-ended questions are asked to all interviewees; this approach facilitates faster interviews that can be more easily analyzed and compared.

12. Closed or fixed-response interview

This is an interview where interviewers ask the same questions and the interviewee is asked to choose answers from the same set of alternatives. This format is useful for those who have not practiced interviewing.